Since this forum was my suggestion, I will start the party. First post!

The story so far:

The car came to Norway the summer of 2007, imported fra Arizona. I bought it in April (2008), after a short test drive. She didn't smoke, but tune was way off, high idle and very low maximum revs. Body in decent condition, passenger side floor has a hole or two, the rest of the car seems sound. No electrics apart from the headlights and starter motor worked.

Next step was to get the electrics up and running, quite a few hours were spent in the "Lotus position" (head down in the foot well, feet up in the air). A new set of steering column switches was ordered from Moss Europe, installing a set for a late MGB (roughly £100 for the full set). Unfortunately, I forgot to specify that I needed the LHD version, so the switches are mounted upside down. No real problem, but looks a bit odd. Colours are the same as the JH switches, but all the pins in the connectors have to be shuffled.

As you can see, John Kimbrough's schematics came in handy while debugging. While I was at it, I installed a set of headlight relays to increase reliability, and changed the sealed beam headlights with H4 replacements.

The radiator was clogged up, so I had it rebuilt locally, using the largest element from Nissens that would fit the tanks. She overheated a few times trying the chase down the cause of the overheating, so I may have a dodgy head gasket at the moment.

The brakes also needed a good going over, so I rebuilt the calipers, changed the rear wheel cylinders, new pads and shoes. I blew out old fluid from the lines, and replaced the leaky master cylinder with a Land Rover part from Paddock's. Seems identical, and was ~£45.

I managed to get licence plates on the car, and put a few miles on it, but handling still leaves a bit to be desired. Tearing the rear end apart reveals some rather sorry looking bushings:

Trying to link in the pictures instead of having them as attachements.

Parked in front of the house

Debugging electrics

Shot rubber bushing

Disassembling rear suspension

Winter in Norway can be rather cold, so insulating the garage has become a priority. No more work on the car until I'm able to heat the garage, but the moment is getting closer. First wooden paneling to make sure I can hang stuff from the wall wherever I want:

Then some gypsum boards to make it reasonably fire proof:

Everything is a bit of a mess, but it isn't easy to build around a car on axle stands...

The overheating was caused by the old radiator, no doubt, so I had it rebuilt, after that I've had no problems at all.

I understood what the problem was when I pointed the garden hose at the radiator while it was running, and the temperature didn't come down at all. Only a few vertical stripes on the radiator dried out quickly.

The garage will hopefully be done (enough) to be heated up some time next week, I'll resume work on the car after that, wife and children permitting.

Working on the car again, I won't start any more work than I can finish by May 10th, I'll be ready for the Norwegian sports car rally at Øvrevoll that day.
I've decided to leave the crossmember in for now, and only replace the bushings that can be removed without taking out the crossmember. Should still be a great improvement.

Marine Clean works great for cleaning parts, and I hope the parts will look great after two coats of POR-15.

Parts after cleaning with Marine Clean

Spindle and steering arm after cleaning and Metal Ready

First coat of POR-15 applied

I think I have identified the source of the slight contamination of the oil on the dipstick; A coolant leak at the thermostat follows a few flanges and drips down on the dipstick. Phew, hopefully no need to pull the engine yet!

Two hour of trying, swearing, trying again, swearing some more before the parts fit like they should. The right rear corner is back together, you might say it's been a learning experience... The upside is that I'm not going to spend as much time on the other side.

I haven't torqued the bolts down yet, but with SuperPro bushes, I can do that without weight on the wheels, right?

Right rear corner back together

I had a bit of a fight with the Nylok nut on the top of the shock absorber, it spun the shock shaft rather than screw on. Pinching the rubber help quite a bit, but that is a hack in my book. Has anyone else had the same problem, or do you use a double M10 nut instead?

Just a little update. Progress is really slow at the moment, but it is happening. Prepping the rest of the suspension parts for paint, so a lot of part will soon be ready for assembly.

I made a fool of myself today when removing the inner bushing from the front lower suspension arms. By mistake (I was in a bit of a hurry) I took the wrong receiver tube, didn't think more of it and proceeded to bend one arm ever so slightly (I do mean rather badly). I hope David Booth can come to the rescue, although I think I may be able to salvage the part if I really have to. Lesson learned!

Tonight, I was able to get some work done. Mounted most of the RHS front end last night, today I got new engine mounts in, new gaiters for the steering rack, lubed the steering rack (80W-90 gear oil, as per instructions elsewhere on the forum), mounted the master cylinder after fixing the leak due to a shoddy plastic casting, and welded up the enlarged bolt hole in the crossmember.

May 10th is getting closer, but unless something unforeseen happens, I should be able to make it to the sports car gathering. Oh joy!

Road test last night, and suspension wise everything was great. What was not so great was that the coolant definately had oil in it, and there was a bit of light brown opaque oil on the dipstick. AFAIK, that is a blown head gasket, but given the total state of the engine, I think a swap is in order...

Known issues with the current engine:
- Oil pump is probably about to fail, takes a long time to prime
- Oil leak from the crankshaft seal behind the flywheel
- Leaking frost plugs in several places
- Cross threaded plug hole on #4

A "new" engine will be coming in from England in due time, but is likely to take at least another month before it arrives. I don't know yet if Mike at Lotusbits was able to demo an engine for ozzadavies yesterday when he was in Marton to pick up his car after an engine swap.

Starting to fit the new soft top I got from Rejen Classics, fit seems fine. I will have to change a lot of the velcro on the frame, and manufacture a fastener or two before everything fits like it should.

Project state: Back on the priority list! The family barge is now fairly sorted (Project blog), thus releasing resources for Miss Jensen.

Engine is shipped from England next week, will likely take 3 weeks before I get it. Getting an engine out of an Elite or Eclat, so I will have 9.5:1 compression and 45mm Dell'Ortos.

Will do basic maintenance before fitting it, i.e. new oil seals at both ends of the crankshaft, new timing belt and tensioner bearings, new waterpump and a carb rebuild. The old engine will at some stage be rebuilt...

Will have to fabricate the missing pieces for fitting the hood one of these days too.